Peronist Beliefs and Interventionist Policies

Abstract

We study the logic of Peronist interventionist polices and the beliefs that support them. Instead of a comprehensive approach, we focus on three elements. First, we study beliefs and values about the economic system present in Peron's speeches during the period 1943-1955. Second, we study survey data for the 1990s on the beliefs of Peronist and non- Peronist voters in Argentina and Democrat and Republican voters in the U.S. While income and education suggest that Peronists (in relative terms) look like the American Democrats, their beliefs and values suggest that Peronists are the Argentine equivalent of the Republicans. Third, given that these beliefs are non-standard (for economists) we present a model formalizing some of their key aspects (for example, the idea that there is something more than a material exchange in labor relations).

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